Posted on 01/31/2008 7:46:41 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0
Compare Foods agrees to pay $40,000 to former employees replaced by Latinos.
Eugene Gates Jr. is a self-proclaimed “meat man.”
The 57-year-old Charlotte native started slicing meat when he was a high school student in 1965. He had almost 40 years of experience by the time new owners of the grocery store where he’d been working on North Tryon Street converted it to Compare Foods in January 2004.
So he said he was outraged when his hours were cut in half and a young Latino employee was brought in to take his shifts. Gates said he was told that the company needed someone who could better relate to the store’s Latino customers.
“This fellow was like maybe 22, 23, 25 at the most,” Gates said. “I’m 50-something. He couldn’t know as much as I know. You just don’t treat people like that.”
This week, he and two other former employees were awarded a total of $40,000 to settle a national origin and race discrimination lawsuit filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in U.S. District Court.
Compare Foods also agreed to create a formal anti-discrimination policy that would be distributed and included in employee training. The company will post a notice about the lawsuit at its North Tryon location and send biannual reports to the EEOC on every employee that leaves the store, and why, for the next three years.
Phil Van Hoy, lawyer for Compare Foods, said the company maintains that the workers were treated fairly.
The way the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been interpreted, he said, a business can require employees to have certain qualifications if proven necessary. So, if you have a big enough Latino customer base, it’s lawful “to have at least enough of your employees who can communicate with them,” he said.
Compare Foods was founded in Freeport, N.Y., in 1989 by the Peña family, according to the company Web site. There are now more than 50 Compare Foods stores in seven states, including 20 in North Carolina.
The North Tryon location had been various grocery stores before Compare Foods bought it. The new owner told employees there wouldn’t be any changes, Gates said, but within a month, the management began bringing in Latino workers. Many were young and inexperienced, he said, especially for meat cutting.
“You just don’t bring somebody off the street. That’s a skill you have to be trained for,” Gates said, holding up his thumb, which is missing a piece from an accident with a meat saw.
Gates said he was making $12.50 an hour as the meat department’s assistant manager and was working five to eight hours of overtime a week when he was told that his hours would be cut in half.
He said he felt forced to resign.
A month later, meat wrapper Bernice Grier, of Charlotte, was fired, followed by department manager Thomas McCoy, of Rock Hill, said EEOC regional attorney Lynette Barnes. Both were replaced with Latino workers.
Grier, who is black, did not respond to phone calls. McCoy, who is white, declined to comment, but confirmed facts.
Barnes said that Compare Foods couldn’t prove that it was a necessary job qualification to be able to relate to Latinos or speak Spanish. Gates said most of the customers there used to be black. It wasn’t until 2004, he said, that he began to see an even mix of black and Latino customers.
Sometimes, Gates said, there were communication problems with Spanish-speaking customers, but he could figure out what they wanted by showing them things in the deli case. He learned that many of them preferred thin cuts of meat.
“I can cut it just as thin as you want it. I could cut anything you want,” he said.
There’s no doubt that the North Tryon store caters to a Latino market now. Salsa music greets customers at the store entrance, and the shelves inside are packed with products from Mexico and other Latin-American countries, many of them labeled en español.
Barnes said this is one of only a few cases she’s seen in which a company said it needed more Latino workers to serve a Latino market. But, she said, the EEOC has seen more and more cases nationwide concerning discrimination against non-Latinos where companies were seeking Latino workers as a cheap source of labor.
This is the only discrimination lawsuit Compare Foods has faced in its Charlotte stores, Van Hoy said.
“It’s an unusual case at this point in time, but I don’t think it will be in the future,” Van Hoy said. “It’s a sign of the times.”
They have a competitor in my town and I stop there once in a while for cheap mangos, peepers and other stuff when I'm making big batches of salsa. I told the manager about a grocery store in a better part of town that had closed and would make a good location for another store. He replied, "nah, it's not hood enough over there for us".
PENA, PAULINO MR.
BRIDGEPORT, CT 06608
COMPARE FOODS/BUSINESSMAN
BUSH, GEORGE W
VIA BUSH-CHENEY ‘04 (PRIMARY) INC
06/16/2003 1000.00 23991421669
10/22/2003 500.00 24990263002
04/08/2004 500.00 24961372074
BUSH, GEORGE W
VIA BUSH-CHENEY ‘04 COMPLIANCE COMMITTEE INC.
05/14/2004 500.00 24961612204
The MS-13 market.
Is it legal to fire someone for not being able to communicate with your English speaking customers?
Good old Jorge, scratching the backs of his financial supporters by refusing to make immigration law enforcement a priority.
What ever happened to the once-feared Amalgamated Meat Cutters, the first union many a high-schooler joined in order to pack bags at the grocery store?
Someone in the family also donated to Charlie Rangel, too, though not since 1999. Wonder why?
Yeh, I was a member of THAT union. Went to a Christmas Party once. The big boys were all packing. Never went again.
Gates isn’t talking race; he is talking qualifications and it looks like he has them.
If it ain’t broker; don’t fix it.
And you serve those peepers with stuned wheat crackers and beebers?
As an aside, there is an interesting difference in how meat is cut for Mexican customers. That is, there is a Mexican style of meat cutting that is very different from the American style.
It is interesting from the cooking point of view, pondering how such different cuts are usually prepared.
LOL, yeah, that and cheese.
Inside Compare stores, samba and merengue music plays over the stereo system. Pinatas adorn the aisles. And a range of South American specialties are sold, including ox tail, goat shoulder, cow testicle and guinea pig. Fruit varieties range from coconut, guayaba and papaya to mango, passion fruit and guava
The relevant question - was the young Latino guy being paid 12.50 per hour ?
Probably not.
I bagged groceries in that store in the 70's when it was Park 'N Shop. Didn't have to speak Spanish though. :)
LOL!!
Back on topic, I do feel sorry for these older employees pushed out by immigrants, IF the immigrants are majority illegals. The suburb where I grew up has become a sanctuary and it is rare even to hear English spoken in the stores. All within walking distance of the U.S. Capital.
Still, Mexicans like their meat dead ~ and usually well-cooked. Not at all like we real Americans who eat thin sliced rawfish on sticky rice ~
Our local Safeway carries pigs ears.
I agree that the guy had a case, but this politically correct crap the EEOC uses to punish a "criminal" employer is ridiculous. Mandatory sensitivity training anyone? Or how about paying $1,000 to all white/black people who "might" have applied to the store? (Based on an actual judgment from the EEOC.
40 years experience and only 12.50 p/h?
I pay better than that for green employees, they just have to show up and work hard.
Same - my 18yo kid worked in a retail store last summer and made 10.50 per hour.
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